Latest / Pod Save America / “America’s Crazy Uncle.” (Town hall recap)

Transcript

“America’s Crazy Uncle.” (Town hall recap) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, Dan talks to Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: about the race and what could be the tipping point
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: battleground state. Before that, we'll talk about the dueling Trump-Biden
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: town halls, how the pandemic continues to affect the campaigns,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and we'll answer a few of your questions. A few
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: quick housekeeping notes before we start. Check out this week's
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: episode of Pod Save the World, where Tommy and Ben
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: talk about the Trump administration's troop withdrawal timelines in Afghanistan,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: why K-pop stars BTS are taking criticism from China, and
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: North Korea's gigantic new missile. Great combo of topics there.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Happy 150th episode to our friends at Keep It. Ira,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: thank you for finally inviting me on the 300th episode.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I look forward to that. I'm glad that we're not
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: fighting anymore. I love you all. And I look forward
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to coming on Keep It in another 150 episodes. So
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: thank you. Our Fuck Gerrymandering Fund has been so successful.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: that we've added some new states. So please donate to
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: help flip state legislatures across the country. Go to votesaveamerica.com
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: slash fuck Jerry. Super important. And before we get to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the news, we have just for you an exclusive new
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: internal poll from the Doug Jones for Senate campaign that
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: has Jones with a one point lead over Republican Tommy Tuberville,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: 48 to 47. The October 11th through 14th poll of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: 801 Alabama voters has Jones up 16 points with independents
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: and 65 to 23 among voters who've already cast their ballot. Dan,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: can Doug Jones pull off another miracle in Alabama?
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Well, he certainly can, according to this poll. I mean, look,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Doug Jones is exactly the right person we want in
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: the United States Senate. He is in politics for all
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: the right reasons. Fairbank, Maslin, the pollsters that did this
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: poll are very legitimate. I've worked with them in the past.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Joe Trippi, who's a senior advisor to Doug Jones. who
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: you may recall from a recent episode of Campaign Experts React,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: is a longtime and legendary Democratic consultant. I mean, if
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: they say he has a shot, it seems like he
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: has a shot, but he's only going to be able
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: to take advantage of the opportunity he has if he
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: has enough money to do it, which is why we
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: encourage everyone who is looking to help Senator Jones to
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: contribute to his campaign. A final push here, and I
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: think Doug Jones could actually pull off what would be
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: the upset of the entire cycle if he can do this.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Look, Polls obviously can be wrong. They can be off.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: But for those of you who are thinking, oh, it's
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: an internal poll, so maybe it's not right. At least
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: on the Democratic side, you and I have worked on
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of campaigns. It does not behoove Democratic candidates
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: to come up with fake internal polls because they are
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: making decisions based on those polls. They're trying to figure
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: out where the electorate is. So, you know, if that's
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: where they think the race is, that's where they think
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the race is. It may be wrong, but that is...
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: you know, it could be a race. And Doug Jones
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: needs our help, DougJones.com to donate. Again, we want as
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: many paths to 51 Senate seats as possible. We have
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: not locked up the Senate yet by any means. So
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: anywhere in the country where there's a Senate race that
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: a few dollars might help a Democrat, I would encourage
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: everyone to donate.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I would say one more thing about this is, Doug
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Jones's political profile is consistent with being a Democrat who
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: can win Alabama in the right year. 2017 was the
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: right year. This might be the right year again. He
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: is running against Tommy Tuberville, who is a former football
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: coach who has literally no idea what he's talking about.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Healthcare in this race, like in every race around the country,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: is an absolute top issue. Doug Jones has a huge
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: advantage on that. Tommy Tuberville is basically a less talented Trump.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: And so There is an opportunity here. And if Doug
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Jones has the resources, he might be able to pull
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: it off. And if we win this race, it makes
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: the path to taking control of the Senate so much easier.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. It's yeah. OK, let's get to the news.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Thursday was supposed to be the night of the second
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: presidential debate until Donald Trump declined to participate after the
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: commission made it virtual because he contracted COVID. Instead, both
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: candidates held separate town halls. Biden's was moderated by ABC's
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: George Stephanopoulos. And Trump's was moderated by NBC's Savannah Guthrie. First,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about the controversy over Trump's town hall.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: A lot of liberals and journalists, including quite a few
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: journalists and staffers at NBC, were upset with the network
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: for rewarding our super spreader president with an event that
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: aired at the same time as Biden's town hall, especially
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: since Trump was the one who pulled out of the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: second debate and hasn't exactly been forthcoming about his health. Dan,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: what did you make of that controversy?
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Do you know how sometimes in the course of a
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: day spent mostly on Twitter, you just decide there are
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: certain things you don't have the energy to understand? This
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: is one of them. Can you help me understand? Like,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: what is the, what's the argument against it? I'm not
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: saying it's wrong. I just fully.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: This is going to be hard for me because I,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I was, I didn't understand it at all either, but
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: I will give it a whirl.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: So like, you know, Trump throws a temper tantrum. He
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: pulls out of a debate. he hasn't been forthcoming about
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: his health, so you don't know if he's infectious. And
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: so NBC decides to step in and say, okay, well,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: we'll give you a forum anyway to talk to people
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: and we'll do it opposite Joe Biden. I still, I'm
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: telling you, I mean, I just want to look at
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: things at this point with, you know, just over two
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: weeks left until the election from a purely political standpoint,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: what is going to help Joe Biden win? That's literally
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: all I fucking care about right now.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: And, Having Trump speak to voters on national television for
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: 60 minutes is probably going to help Joe Biden win.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: That was all that was going through my mind. More Trump,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: as we have been saying for years now, is never
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: a good thing when it comes to undecided voters, swing voters,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: voters on the margins. I'm not talking about his base.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: If Trump wins this election, it's because his base was
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: fired up and he got even more Trump voters out
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: there registered and that's how it happened. It's not because
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: he convinced them during this fucking town hall.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that there is probably a lesson in
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: this and it's a reminder, which is how do you
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: feel about your cable company?
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Well, I've cut the cord. Now we just have- Right.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Well, everyone hates their cable company. A cable company owns NBC, right? Ultimately,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: and this is not about the journalists at NBC. This
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: is about how business decisions are made. And we constantly
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: want large media companies owned by even larger for-profit corporations
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: to do the quote unquote right thing. They are businesses.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: They're always going to do what is best for business.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: And that is what happened here. Yes, it is unfair
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: to reward. I've now figured out why people are mad
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: about this. It is unfair to reward Trump for basically
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: lying to the debate commission, getting COVID, spreading it to everyone,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: backing out of the debate, and then rewarding him for
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: that ridiculous behavior with this town hall. But NBC is
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: a business and they are in it to make money.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: and they want ratings and they want to sell ads.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: And that is what they are doing here.
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: Right or wrong.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: This is always going to happen.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: And I will say this, I get it. We have
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks to go. Everyone is very anxious.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Everyone is very worried. Everyone is nerves are frayed. I
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: am there too. And people just, anything that seems like
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: it could shake up the race worries, people, people want
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to do something. I would just say to everyone, You
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: got to focus on what's going to get Joe Biden
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: to 270, right?
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And I know what that is now.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: It is not boycotting an NBC town hall, folks. It's
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: just not.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: No, you know what it is?
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: It's not that.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: I think after last night, what it is, is we
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: should take all the energy that went into boycotting the
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: NBC town hall and use it to pressure CBS to
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: give Trump a two-hour town hall. Right after a football game.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: See, that's something that could get Joe Biden closer to 270.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: That's my point. Stuff like this is going to happen
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: in the next two weeks. When it happens, go to
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the phone bank, go to the text bank, talk to
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: people you know about Joe Biden, what he stands for.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: That is the most productive use of our time at
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: this point. Make sure the people in your life who
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: might not vote, go vote. How do you think Savannah
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: did as a moderator? Fabulous.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: She was great.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I think it was one of the best the best
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Trump interviews that I have ever seen. And I say
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: interview because, you know, she did have to make room
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: at some point for voters to ask questions, but she
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: decided in that town hall early on that she was
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: going to treat at least the beginning like a straight interview.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Because it's been a number of years now, Savannah is
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: often thought of, she's the host of the Today Show.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: It's a morning show. She's often interviewing movie stars and
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: celebrities in addition to politicians. But before that, she was
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: a White House correspondent. Every single morning for the years
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: that Savannah was the White House correspondent, she would call
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: me at like 6.30 in the morning because she would
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: have to do a morning Joe hit as part of
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: her job. Sorry, Savannah, I'm glad you graduated from that.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: And would kick my ass every morning, right? Like she
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: is smart as can be. She is a lawyer by training,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: incredibly talented. And she approached this like every interview with
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Trump should be approached. And she knew her facts. She
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: did not back down. She held them to account. She
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: did not let him just vomit verbal applesauce onto the
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: stage and move on to the next thing. She did
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: a she did a phenomenal job. Uh, like we were biased.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: We were friends of hers. She's, I think the, was
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: the second ever guest on a podcast that we've done together. And, uh,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: but she was a superstar last night and it was
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: awesome to see.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Well, and like you said, yeah, we've known Savannah a
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: long time. I've always been a big fan. She's a friend, but, um,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I will say the other thing that made it so
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: good and what makes Savannah such a good journalist and
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: why the today show host role is such a good
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: fit for her She's just very normal and down to earth.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: And she approached the interview like a human being at
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: home who's skeptical of this lunatic president asking him questions, right?
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: She was nice. She asked very piercing questions in a
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: very congenial tone. And she followed up very sharply, still
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: maintaining that very congenial tone. and smiling the whole time
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: at him, right? Like she was not, she did not
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: go super hard at him. She was not playing for
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the cameras. She was not, you know, like some of
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: the people who interviewed Trump do. She just was like,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: she stuck on one question, followed up when he lied.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: She stayed there. She didn't leave. And she kept following up,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: following up, following up until he finally answered the question,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: which a lot of times he didn't. And he just dissembled.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Because as every interview with Trump that has gone really
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: poorly for Trump, it's because the interviewer in question does
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: not let him move on to the next topic. And
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: they don't move on to the next topic. They just
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: keep following up on his lies and on him just
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: babbling until he, you know, until he finally says something.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is an interesting thing, which is reporters go,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: we've seen this in interviews with more normal presidents, like
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: the one we work for, reporters go into it and
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: there's like, I know I have 20 minutes or 30
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: minutes and I have to get to these seven things.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: And so when the president doesn't answer the question on
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: the first or even the second try, you move on.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: And what I thought was really good about Savannah, and
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: I think Jonathan Swan did this and Chris Wallace and
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: the other sort of good performances by interviewers with Trump,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: is they've been willing to cover less topics to try
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: to get answers on some of them. And I thought
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: that's the right way to do it. Because I watched
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: the Biden interview in real time and the Trump interview afterwards.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: And I was shocked by how short the Trump one
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: felt and how few topics they actually got to. But
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: by that approach, you actually got hit, forced his hand
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: to try to answer some of them. And I thought
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: it was very interesting. It was very fruitful for viewers
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: trying to understand more about who this lunatic is.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Now, the early ratings out say that Biden's town hall
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: was narrowly more popular than Trump's, although we should note
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: that there's a few cable networks that NBC owns like MSNBC,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Telemundo that are still out there. So as the ratings
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: come in today, you know, Trump could pull ahead. But
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: at the very least, it seems like they're roughly similar.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: And one of the fears about this town hall was
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: that Trump would swamp Biden in the ratings, which, you know,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: I have to say again, I kind of wish more
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: people watched Trump's town hall.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Super Bowl ratings for Trump is what we want.
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: You know?
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Beam it into the cortex of the American people. Like, yeah.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping as the ratings come in, it's more ratings
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: for Trump. That's what I'm hoping.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: That's right. Like, I mean, I think it is, like,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: ratings are... like a pretty imperfect metric of enthusiasm. Like
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: it is exciting that this many people wanted, chose Biden
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: over Trump. I think that is a good sign. I
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: think it speaks to enthusiasm among our supporters. It probably
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: even speaks to some swing voters who probably think they
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: know all they need to know about Trump, but want
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: to check out the other guy. And so I think
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: that's all positive. But in general, we want the American
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: people seeing Trump speak because that is bad for him.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about some of the notable moments.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Savannah kicked off the night by trying to pin down
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Trump on the timeline of his COVID infection. A little
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: bit later, she and one of the voters pressed Trump
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: on whether he's now changed his mind on the importance
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: of masks. Let's take a listen to both of those interactions.
• 13:44
  Speaker 6: When was your last negative test? When did you last
• 13:47
  Speaker 6: remember having a negative test?
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: Well, I test quite a bit, and I can tell
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: you that before the debate, which I thought it was
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: a very good debate, and I felt fantastically.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: I had no problem before. Did you test the day
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: of the debate?
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: I don't even remember.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: I test all the time.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: But I can tell you this.
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: After the debate, like I guess a day or so,
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: I think it was Thursday evening, maybe even late Thursday evening,
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: I tested positive.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: That's when I first found out about it.
• 14:16
  Speaker 6: Well, back to the debate, because the debate commission's rules,
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: it was the honor system, would be that you would
• 14:21
  Speaker 6: come with a negative test.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: You say you don't know if you got a test
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: on the day of the debate? I had no problem. Again,
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: the doctors do it.
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: I don't ask them.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: I test all the time.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: Did you take a test, though, on the day of
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: the debate?
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: If you ask the doctor, they'll give you a perfect answer. Yeah.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: They take a test, and I leave, and I go
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: about my business.
• 14:36
  Speaker 6: So did you take a test on the day of
• 14:37
  Speaker 6: the debate, I guess, is the bottom line.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: I probably did, and I took a test the day
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: before and the day before, and I was always in
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: great shape, and I was in great.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: Shape for the debate.
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: And it was only after the debate, like a period
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: of time after the debate, that I said, that's interesting,
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: and they took a test, and it tested positive.
• 14:55
  Speaker 6: So just to button it up, do you take a
• 14:57
  Speaker 6: test every single day?
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: No, no, but I take a lot of tests. Okay,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: and you don't know if you took a test the
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: day of the debate?
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: No. Possibly I did. Possibly I didn't.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Here's the mask one.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: As far as the mask is concerned, I'm good with masks.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: I'm OK with masks. I tell people wear masks. But
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: just the other day, they came out with a statement
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: that 85 percent of the people that wear masks catch it. So,
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: you know, that's what I heard and that's what I saw.
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: And regardless, but everybody's tested and they're tested often. And
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: I also knew. That, hey, I'm president. I have to
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: see people. I can't be in a basement. I can't
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: be in a room. I can't be, I have to
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: be out.
• 15:36
  Speaker 6: You can see people with a mask though, right?
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: I can, but people with masks are catching it all
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: the time.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Has your opinion changed on the importance of mask wearing?
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: No, because I was OK with the masks. I was
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: good with it. But I've heard many different stories on masks.
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: I mean, I had, you know, being president, you have people,
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: they bring meals, they bring this. And I had an
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: instance recently where a very wonderful person is bringing me
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: a meal and he's playing with his mask and he's
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: touching his mask all over the place. And then he's
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: bringing a plate in and I'm saying, well, I don't
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: know if that's so good.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, the good news, I didn't eat it, okay?
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: I decided not to eat it.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: This was a month ago. But look, you have on
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: the masks, you know, you have two stories. You have
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: a story where they want, a story where they don't want.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: I am all for it.
• 16:20
  Speaker 6: I don't get that because it's just all of your
• 16:22
  Speaker 6: public health officials, your administration, they're in unison about this.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: So it seems to me from these answers that the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: president didn't get tested right before the debate, was probably
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: infectious at the debate, does have some kind of lung damage,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: He said later, they said the lungs are a little
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: bit different, a little bit perhaps infected when Savannah was
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: asking him about that. And he clearly hasn't learned a
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: thing from his illness.
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: What about you?
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: What was your takeaway there?
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, the testing thing is a gigantic issue with
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: this debate coming up next week. How is the debate
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: commission going to change its honor system for ensuring that
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: the next president of the United States may not catch COVID, right? Like,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: how are they going to change that? Like, I don't
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: know if you have gotten a COVID test, you know
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: anyone who has, but they stick a Q-tip very far
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: up your nose. You would remember when it happened, right?
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: The debate's a memorable day in a seven-day week.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, look.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I've gotten a COVID test up the nose. I've gotten
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: one of the finger prick ones, which I know is
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: what they have at the White House, some of the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: rapid ones. No matter what it is, you remember getting
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: a fucking COVID test. Of course he knows the COVID test.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: It's obvious. It is obvious what happened that the last
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: time he probably got a COVID test was Saturday, the
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: day of the Amy Coney Barrett super spreader event. And
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: then the White House just told the debate commission that
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: that COVID test was still valid, even though clearly he
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: caught COVID in between that event or at that event
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: and the debate.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Or he had it before because the pre, the White
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: House rapid tests are the same rapid tests you see
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: the NFL using. And if you track the NFL very closely,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: it is constant. Like, you know, this team has four
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: positive tests. And then the next day they do the
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: PCR test and they don't have them or vice versa
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: or That is not a reliable enough measure. And I
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: am convinced based on nothing. So file this in a
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theory if you want. But I have my personal
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theory is that Trump, remember when the first time
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: he ever got the test and he complained for like
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: 30 minutes about the pain in his nose and how
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: far up there. I am convinced that he refuses to
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: take the PCR test.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, because he doesn't want it up there. But
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I think you can take the PCR test, not up
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the nose, too. I think they can do it other ways.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: If that is the case, then my conspiracy theory has collapsed.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Faster than it's going on. I will say the first
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: time I got a COVID test was the PCR test
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: up the nose. And I was like, oh, God, this
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: is going to be awful. I don't love medical things.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: And then it happened and I was like, that is
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: like minorly uncomfortable. It wasn't bad at all. And the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: nurse who gave it to me, she was like, yeah,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: you know, the president went on TV and said that
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: it was a horrible test and now people are worried
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: about it. He's never helpful on anything that he does.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Nothing he ever does is helpful.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Get that lady in a town hall.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this random nurse just complaining about the president unprompted.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I also think on the mask issue, like this is.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: It's insane.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: This young woman, the young woman who asked the question
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: is a frontline health care worker. She was undecided. I
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: think maybe leaning Biden. I think her mom was leaning Trump.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: They both asked questions together. But like, have you changed
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: your mind on masks? Here's what Chris Christie, who spent
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: four days in the ICU, said yesterday. He's been saying
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: it again today. I was he said I was wrong.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: People should wear masks. And then he talked about Trump's
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: answer last night and said, He should not have just
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: said it's okay to wear masks. He should have encouraged
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: people to wear masks and he should have encouraged people
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to social distance because I didn't do either of those
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: things and I ended up in the ICU for four days.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Chris Christie, who is someone who like faced death because
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: of COVID and said, you know what? I was a
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: fucking idiot. idiot I learned a lesson people should wear
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: masks like if Trump had just said that even on
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: that one issue like it would have made me nervous
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: because I actually think it would have helped him politically
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: a little.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Bit I mean the whole thing was a layup that
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: he threw over the backboard a layup but like here
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: is an 80% issue with no political downside at all.
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: Mr.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: President, would you like to support it here with no pushback?
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: More than half of his base, not his base, more
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: than half of the Republican party is in favor of
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: everyone wearing masks.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, and he even like, he clearly was instructed
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: to by his now COVID immune staff to endorse masks.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Because he kind of hafted it several times. He said, Savannah,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: you and I are on the same side of masks.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: I'm fine with masks. But he could never, he can't
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: actually get himself in that position because then he would
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: say he's for them. And then he would spend the
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: next five minutes undermining that point by talking about this
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: fake study of 85% and telling that very weird story
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: about the person fingering their mask. He cannot bring himself
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: to do the most obvious thing he could do to
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: help himself because Anything that suggests that COVID is serious
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: reminds him of his absolute historic pathetic failure to protect
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: the American people. COVID is this interesting mirror that it
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: forces Trump to look at himself and see himself as
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: the absolute failure that he has always, I think, probably
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: known down deep that he really was. not to psychoanalyze them.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: That's why he can't bring himself to just admit he
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: was wrong on one thing or adopt the most obvious
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: safe things. He can't do that because it reminds him
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: that he's screwed up and he is not who he
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: likes people to think he is.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not just COVID though. He's literally never
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: been able to say he was wrong on anything his
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: entire life. Yes, this is true. I mean, it is
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: his one consistent theory of politics. Never admit you're wrong.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Never admit a mistake. Never say you're sorry ever, no
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: matter what. And by the way, saying like, it's okay
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: if you wear a mask, that's not the fucking point
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of masks. Like masks don't work if it's just a
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: choice and you can wear one if you want and
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: you don't have to, you know, like that's not how
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: masks work. The masks are effective if everyone wears a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: fucking mask. Unbelievable that we're still saying that now. Anyway,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: because Trump is the nation's most famous conspiracy theorist, Savannah
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: had to spend some time on a few of the
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: nuttier things he's tweeted recently. She asked if he would
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: disavow QAnon, which the FBI- Trump's FBI has called a
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: domestic terror threat. Trump declined. She then asked why he
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: tweeted a ludicrous conspiracy that Barack Obama and Joe Biden
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: had SEAL Team 6 killed, the members of which are
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: very much alive. He didn't have a great answer for
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: that either. Let's listen to both clips.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Outwards announcing, let.
• 22:33
  Speaker 6: Me ask you about QAnon. It is this theory that
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: Democrats are a satanic pedophile ring and that you are
• 22:43
  Speaker 6: the savior of that. Now, can you just once and
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: for all state that that is completely not true and
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: disavow QAnon in its entirety?
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: I know nothing about QAnon.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: I just told you. I know very little.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: You told me, but what you tell me doesn't necessarily
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: make it fact.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: I hate to say that.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: I know nothing about it. I do know they are
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: very much against it.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Pedophilia.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: They fight it very hard, but I know nothing about it.
• 23:12
  Speaker 6: If you'd like me to study the subject, I'll tell
• 23:15
  Speaker 6: you what I do know about.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: I know about Antifa and I know about the radical
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: left and I know.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: How violent they are and how vicious they are.
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: And I know how they're burning down cities run by Democrats.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Not run by Republicans.
• 23:26
  Speaker 6: Republican Senator Ben Sasse said, quote, QAnon is nuts. And
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: real leaders call conspiracy theories conspiracy theories.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Why not just say it's crazy and not true?
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: He may be right. I just don't know about QAnon.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: You do know.
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: Just this week, you retweeted to your 87 million followers
• 23:44
  Speaker 6: a conspiracy theory.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: That Joe Biden orchestrated to.
• 23:47
  Speaker 6: Have SEAL Team 6, the Navy SEAL Team 6, killed
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: to cover up the fake death of bin Laden. Now,
• 23:54
  Speaker 6: why would you send a lie like that to your followers?
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: You retweeted it. That was a retweet.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: That was an opinion of somebody, and that was a retweet.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: I'll put it out there. People can decide for themselves.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: I don't get that.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: You're the president. You're not like someone's crazy uncle who
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: can just retweet whatever. That was a retweet. And I
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: do a lot of retweets.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: And frankly, because the media is so fake and so corrupt,
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: if I didn't have social media, I don't call it Twitter,
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: I call it social media, I wouldn't be able to
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: get the word out.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Retweets are not endorsements. That's true.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is true. That is true.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, Savannah saying that you're not somebody's crazy uncle was,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: to me, basically sums up Trump and the whole entire race, right? Like, yes, no,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: he actually... A lot of voters right now, hopefully a
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: majority of voters in states that add up to 270,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: see him as America's crazy fucking uncle, retweeting crazy shit
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: like this. I'm so glad she brought that up. I
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: was hoping she would bring that up because we are
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: so inert to Donald Trump's craziness on Twitter that I
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: didn't even realize until a day later when someone pointed
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: it out on Twitter that he had retweeted this conspiracy
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: about obama and bin laden and seal team six and
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: all this bullshit and a whole bunch of reporters didn't
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: even write about it until a day later and suddenly
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: everyone realized remembered that he had done that because he
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: tweeted so many crazy things in a row but like
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the idea that you're the president united states and you
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: would just promote promote a conspiracy theory that your predecessor
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: and your political opponent had the people who killed bin
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: laden killed and the blood i mean what the fuck
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: is he doing.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, the crazy uncle was the exact right way
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: to describe Trump because, you know, we talk about this
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: a lot. But if anyone in your family, it would
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: most likely be your uncle, said the things Trump said,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: posted the things Trump's posted on social media, there would
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: be a family meeting about it, right? And hopefully that's
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: what this election is, is like the America's family meeting
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: about the crazy uncle that we have to do something about.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, the conspiracy theory in this case is insane.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Like it is, as I understand it, the Bush and
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Obama administrations colluded together to keep bin Laden alive in Iran.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: And To then bring him.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: It's not even worth it.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: But I mean, it's so crazy. I mean, it is
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: why ultimately having Trump have to face the public and
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: speak in public is politically good for Democrats because it
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: prevents people from tuning it out. It prevents the media
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: from sort of sanitizing and trying to take the crazy
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: things he says and fit it into a traditional framework
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: of how a president acts. And it is just all
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: of the craziness, all the stupidity, all of the narcissism,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: all of the meanness On display for the whole country
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: to watch. And that and that is what happened in
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: this answer as well.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Which it normally isn't unless you are paying attention to
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: his Twitter feed all the time. And most of the
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: country is not on Twitter. But like, you know, Brian
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Stelter pointed this out at CNN, like, you know, Trump
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: usually does interviews and speaks in public in safe spaces.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: He talks to Sean Hannity. He talks to Laura Ingraham.
• 26:55
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: He talks to all his friends on Fox. And they
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: will never ask him about these crazy conspiracies and crazy
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: tweets because most of the time they're promoting it on
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: their network as well. And so the rare moments when
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump steps outside of his right wing MAGA media
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: safe space and actually sits for a real interview and
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: a reporter calls him on one of the many occasions.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: crazy things he says or tweets on a daily basis,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: he falls apart. He falls apart. And the whole country
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: gets to see that. I mean, like, how do you
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: think it, how do you think both those things play
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: with people who are just hearing about these conspiracies for
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the first time? I would imagine that a lot of voters,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of people who are just tuning into town
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: halls who aren't sort of political junkies might not have
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: never heard about QAnon themselves. They probably certainly haven't heard
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: about that crazy conspiracy about seal team six. Like, what
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: does that seem like to people? Do they just see it?
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Do you think they see it as noise? Do you
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: think they see it as, yeah, something's a little wrong
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: with this guy?
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: I think to the extent that people, if people dig
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: into any of it, to what QAnon is or what
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: this conspiracy is going to be deeply, deeply, deeply concerned
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: about what is going on in this country. I think
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: for someone who was sort of surfing the news, who just,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: or maybe just like, maybe didn't tune in this town hall,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: but saw a clip of that on social media or
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: heard about it from someone. It is a reminder to
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: these voters that Trump is focused on everything but the
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: most important issue facing the country. 216,000 people have died
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: in the last few months. 8 million people, we learned
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: the other day, have slid into poverty in the last
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: few months. And Donald Trump is retweeting conspiracy theories, defending QAnon.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: He's not focused on the thing that matters. And that is,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: I think, ultimately been Trump's undoing this whole campaign is
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: his inability to to understand the moment we are living
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: in and offer a message and agenda that deals with that. Instead,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: he is off just dealing with the craziest things in
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: the darkest corners of the Fox News expanded universe. And
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: that is a place where the overwhelming majority of voters
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: do not live and do not understand. And so it
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: creates a disconnect. And that is very, very dangerous for
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: a politician facing re-election.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: And we should say before we move on, like he
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: didn't just refuse to disavow QAnon there. He basically praised them.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: He said, well, I know that they're fighting against pedophilia very,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: very hard, which, you know, Ben Collins at NBC, who's
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: done a lot of reporting on QAnon, very deep reporting,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: said that's basically as close to an endorsement as QAnon
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: could hope for and that they are probably rejoicing right
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: now because it was not just, oh, I don't know
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: who they are. It was a wink and a nod
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: to a conspiracy cult that, again, the FBI, Trump's FBI
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: director that he appointed, have called a domestic terror threat.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: These are not just like loony conspiracists, they are dangerous.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: They're dangerous people. So I do think Trump was a
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: little bit less of an angry asshole during some of
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the voting. questions in the second half of the town hall.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: But I think then he had a different problem. Like
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: every time he was asked what he'll do about a
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: certain issue in his second term, he either didn't answer,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: talked about his first term and his record, or he
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: just made shit up. Like how much do you think
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: that matters? Because I do think like, as I was
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: watching him, he sort of calmed down Because he wasn't
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: screaming at Savannah. He was interacting with voters. And so
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: if you sort of watched it, you're like squinted. You're like,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: maybe he sounds a little more normal in the second half,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: but I don't think he was offering any real answers
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: to folks.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: I think he sounded more normal than Trump did in
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: the first half. But I think that is a grand
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: perversion of the word normal. The words he said did
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: not make sense. Like if you were to read a
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: transcript of that, you would think there was some sort
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: of massive transcription error because it meant nothing.
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: The words meant nothing. He had no idea. The health
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: care question was just insanely absurd.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: The best thing that happened on the health care question.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: And again, this was, you know, a credit to Savannah's
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: moderating is she you know, someone asked about his health
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: care plan. He does the whole thing about how Obamacare
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: is awful. The question was like, what are you going
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to do about health care? He had nothing to say
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: about it. Yelled about Obamacare for a while. Talked about
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: protecting preexisting conditions, which is a lie. And then Savannah's like,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: here's the thing. you've been president for four years. You controlled,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and you never replaced Obamacare.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: What happened? And he was like, uh, well, we did
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: replace the individual mandate. She's like, yeah, well, what about
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the rest of the bill? I thought you were going
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: to give us better healthcare. He doesn't have a fucking
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: answer on what he's going to do about literally any
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: issue in the second term if he's reelected.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Nick, he has no, he only wants to win reelection
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: to own the libs. Yeah, own the libs and slow
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: down his criminal prosecution at the state level. I mean, deadly.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: I'm not kidding about that. But he has no idea
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: what he's doing. And the health care answer, it was
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: just a reminder that Trump is a tremendously incoherent liar.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Some of the politicians who were able to survive in
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: 2018 by telling big, huge, massive lies about their super
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: pre-existing conditions They were deeply dishonest, but they were– they
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: could fool people. Trump's lies make no sense. They're conflicting.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: The words don't make sense. And I can't imagine any reasonable,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: truly persuadable voter listened to that or watched that and
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: thought this is something– this man has any idea what
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: he's talking about and is someone who will stand up
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: for men in healthcare.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Frank Luntz did a focus group of
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: undecided voters. And by the way, we should say undecided voters,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: focus groups of undecided voters at this point are probably
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: going to lean a little more Republican the closer we
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: get because Biden's lead is large enough in the polls
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and a lot of people have made up their minds.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: The remaining people, you know, could be a little more.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's probably 730 or 80-20 Republican at this point. Right.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: And they're still undecided. So it tells you something. But
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: he once said that undecided swing state voters said that
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: the more the president spoke last night, the worse he looked.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: So I don't even there was this there was a
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: lot of commentary on Twitter about this 45 year old
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: white woman who asked Trump about DACA. And she started
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the question by saying, you have a really nice smile
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: to the president. And, uh, everyone was like, Oh God,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: she's like a MAGA person. She's a Trump person. This
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: is awful. Afterwards, a reporter caught up with her and
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: asked her, she was voting for her. And she said, Biden,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: even though she, even though she told Trump, he had
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: a nice smile. She's, she's voting for Biden. I mean,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: I don't, do you think he did himself any good
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: at that at all? Is there anything I keep trying
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: to say to all this stuff? Is there anything we're missing?
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Anything we're missing on this?
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: No, you said it right. That Trump could still win
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: for a whole host of things, reasons that have to
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: do with voter suppression. But if he were to win,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: it is not because of what he said last night.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: We have spent so much time over the last four
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: years talking about how Trump's biggest political problem is his tweeting.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: I actually don't think that's true. His biggest political problem
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: is speaking. When people see him speak, he reminds them
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: of everything they hate about him and hate about politics.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: He is stupid.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: He is angry.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: He is pathetic. And he is mean. And none of
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: those are appealing qualities. And they are particularly unappealing in
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: a time of absolute national crisis. Every time he speaks,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: he looks way too small for the moment we are
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: living in. And so that's why we said earlier, CBS,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: host a town hall. ESPN, host a town hall. HBO,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: town hall. Give that man as much airtime as he wants.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: And the other thing that you know, we've always said
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: is that he's focused on himself and not focused on
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: everyone else, right? Like he is, everything is about him.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Everything goes back to him. He is so self-obsessed. Like
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: every question goes back to him.
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: Me, me, me, me, me.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I did this. I did this. He feels wounded. He
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: feels upset. It's always about him. It's just exhausting. It's
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: fucking exhausting.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: He embodies everything. the contrast message against them, which is
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: why it's a good message. Like he, you know, sometimes
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: you have a message and it came in and you say,
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: this person, you know, has gone Washington or they're a
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: creature of special interest, but then they'll be out there
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: when they campaign. They don't seem like that. When you
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: say that Trump is not up to this moment, that
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: he is someone who has not grown in office, he
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: is someone who puts himself first. Every time he walks
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: out of the White House, every time he speaks, everything
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: he does reinforces that message. He is incapable of not
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: reinforcing it.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Last question before we move on to Biden's town hall.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: If you were watching last night's town hall as the
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Biden debate prep team, was there anything that would help
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: you prepare for the final debate next week? Biden's just got,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: we got to get through one more debate here. One
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: more chance for Trump to really shake things up. Was
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: there anything you noticed about Trump's performance that you would?
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: I think if you can, this is a foreign policy debate,
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: which I think we should note. So that makes it
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: a little more challenging. Any conversation you can have with
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Trump on healthcare is a giant winner for Biden. Any conversation,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: if you can bring it back to masks in any way,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: like anything in the world of coronavirus where Trump has
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: to talk about it is bad for him because he
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: cannot say the things that people want him to say.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: He will not bring himself to do it. But I
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: think the biggest thing, which I think was also the
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: takeaway from the debate, is Biden's just got to kind
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: of ignore Trump on that stage. Correct misstatements about his record,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: defend himself without being defensive, as I think he did
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: well last time. Don't let him rattle you and just
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: use the national audience to tell people about your plans.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: And don't worry about, like Trump is going to disqualify
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: himself by his mere presence on that stage. And you
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: just go out there and talk to people because you
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: have a captive audience about what you would do as president.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Because the contrast of the two men, and we'll talk
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: about this in the context of the town halls, embodies
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: what this race is all about. So just Joe Biden
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: being Joe Biden and letting Trump be Trump is exactly
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: what Joe Biden needs to become president.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: I mostly agree with that. I would say, I think
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: that Joe Biden needs to continue to keep Trump off
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: balance because I think if you watch that town hall
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: last night, like when Savannah kept pressing him on what
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: his plans were or what he was going to do
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: or voters did, um, he gets angry and he dissembles
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: and he looks worse. Like I am sure Trump advisors
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: are telling him, tune it down, take it down a
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: couple notches on this last debate.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: And I know that is, it is probably impossible for
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Trump to do, but I, Even if he takes it
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: down a few notches, you could imagine the press grading
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: it as a big win for him.
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: And I think that like I think what Biden needs
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: to accomplish is the most important thing. Tell people about
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: your plans. People are wondering what Biden stands for. What's
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: he going to do like that? That's number one. Get
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: out of there with that. But I think Biden needs
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: to continue to press him on. What would you do?
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Why don't you tell people what you would do on
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: health care in a second term? Why don't you tell
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: people what you would do to stop COVID right now?
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Not what you've done. Not not excuses about the past.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Talk about the future. This is a race about the future.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: What are you going to do? I think he should
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: keep pressing him because, like, I think the danger is
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: if Biden completely ignores him. and Trump sort of takes
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: it down a notch and then spends all of his
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: time either attacking Biden or just like dissembling, then Biden
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: could just, you know, it could look like a slightly
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: better performance than the first debate.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. I think you may have
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: said this in what I remember, although I don't remember
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: if you just remember to be very good advice for
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Biden before the first debate. You know, I was doing
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: some research for some debate stuff and I went back
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: and I watched the moment where Candy Crowley fact-checked Mitt
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Romney on Benghazi. And there is this moment where Romney
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: is stomping around the stage, and he's sure he has
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: nailed Obama on whether Obama called Benghazi an act of terror.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: And it's Obama's time to talk. And Obama goes, no, governor,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: go ahead, and just lets him walk right into the trap.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: And there is an opportunity, I think, for Biden to
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: give his time back when Trump can't answer a question
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: about some policy issue or something else, be like, no, no, no, Mr. President,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: please explain your health care plan. Go ahead. Take my time.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: And that's important because the Trump campaign has essentially telegraphed
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: in a whole bunch of stories over the last couple
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: of weeks that they are going to tell Trump to
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: let Biden talk more, believing that if Biden talks more,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: he will just give long winded answers and he'll commit
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: a gaffe and that Trump should just hold back and
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: not interrupt him so much. So I do think for
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: that reason that it's important for Biden, Biden to let
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Trump talk a lot and specifically about about second term plans,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: because we know it's most important to people watching from
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: home to find out what these two candidates are going
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: to do to improve their lives. That's what people are
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: looking for. And Trump doesn't have a good answer on that.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: He just didn't come up with a second term agenda.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: And you should expose that. All right, let's talk about
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's town hall, which was quite a different affair
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: in just about every way. I thought CNN captured it
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: best with their story about the two events. Quote, on ABC,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was explaining his plan to
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: raise taxes on people making more than $ 400, 000 per year.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: On NBC, President Donald Trump was equivocating about the existence
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: of a satanic cult of pedophiles. Here's a clip of
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden answering that question on taxes.
• 39:56
  Speaker 7: So you can raise a lot of money to be
• 39:59
  Speaker 7: able to invest in things that can make your life easier.
• 40:02
  Speaker 7: make you change your standard of living by making sure
• 40:05
  Speaker 7: you have affordable healthcare, by making sure you're in a
• 40:07
  Speaker 7: situation where you're able to send your kid to school
• 40:10
  Speaker 7: and if you have a student debt you can deal
• 40:12
  Speaker 7: with it, making sure that you're home, you can pay
• 40:15
  Speaker 7: your mortgage. Made in America, if you actually insist that,
• 40:19
  Speaker 7: whatever that product is, made in America, including the material
• 40:23
  Speaker 7: that goes into the product, It's estimated we're going to
• 40:26
  Speaker 7: create somewhere between another 4 and 6 million jobs just
• 40:29
  Speaker 7: by doing that. But what's happening now? Under his trade policy,
• 40:33
  Speaker 7: a lot of this is going overseas. You get a
• 40:35
  Speaker 7: benefit from going overseas if you have much of it
• 40:38
  Speaker 7: being made overseas. So if you send it overseas, you
• 40:41
  Speaker 7: get a 10 percent tax increase on your on a product.
• 40:45
  Speaker 7: If you make it in America and you bring it back,
• 40:47
  Speaker 7: you get a 10 percent growth. If you bring back
• 40:50
  Speaker 7: a company and you're going to open up an old facility,
• 40:54
  Speaker 7: you get a 10 percent tax credit for all you invested.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: That actually works, George.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: So you watch the Biden town hall before the Trump
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: town hall. I did the reverse. What was your overall
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: take on on how Biden did?
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: They did very well. It was just comfortingly normal, right?
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Biden had tried to answer questions. There were details in
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: those questions. I thought he did a very good job.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Some of the answers were better than others, but on
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: the whole, I think it was a very, very good performance.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: And I find it impossible to imagine that a reasonable,
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: truly persuadable voter could watch both town halls and not
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: feel dramatically more comfortable with Joe Biden in the White
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: House than Donald Trump.
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: I think Biden's answer on masks was also a pretty
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: telling contrast to Trump's answer. Here's the clip on that.
• 41:42
  Speaker 7: The words of a president matter.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 41:44
  Speaker 7: No matter whether they're good, bad, or indifferent, they matter.
• 41:48
  Speaker 7: And when a president doesn't wear a mask or makes
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: fun of folks like me when I was wearing a
• 41:52
  Speaker 7: mask for a long time, then, you know, people say, well,
• 41:56
  Speaker 7: it mustn't be that important. But when a president says,
• 41:59
  Speaker 7: I think this is very important. For example, I walked
• 42:02
  Speaker 7: in here with this mask, but I have one of
• 42:04
  Speaker 7: the M95 masks underneath it. I left it in my
• 42:08
  Speaker 7: dressing room, the room I was in before I got here.
• 42:13
  Speaker 7: And so I think it matters what we say. And
• 42:17
  Speaker 7: we're now learning that. that children are getting the virus,
• 42:21
  Speaker 7: not with as serious consequences, but we haven't, there's been
• 42:25
  Speaker 7: no studies done yet on vaccines for children. So there's
• 42:29
  Speaker 7: a long way to go, but we can make progress
• 42:31
  Speaker 7: in the meantime and save lives.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: So I thought that was a really great answer and
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: quite a contrast from Donald Trump's answers to Savannah. Ezra
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Klein had a really great take on the night and
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the whole race that you and I were talking about
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: last night. Specifically on that answer, he wrote, this was
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: again and again Biden's point. The words of the president matter.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: The behavior of the president matters. The comportment of the
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: president matters. The example of the president matters. Biden talks
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: policy often and reasonably well, but he hasn't been putting
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: on a clinic in wonkery. He's been putting on a
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: clinic in decency and it matters.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: It shouldn't.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Decency should be table stakes, too unremarkable to mention. But
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: right now it does. What did you think of that?
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: I thought the P it was a great piece and I, uh,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: am often jealous of the way Ezra makes arguments and
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: his use of the hierarchy of needs as a way
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: to explain this campaign was very, very smart. Um, and
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: I think, I think it is completely true and it,
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: and it, and this is a point Ezra has made
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: me throughout the primary as well. And is there are
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: certain things that political obsessives and political professionals like us
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: really value, right? Eloquent rhetoric, policy, wonkery, um, grand theories
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: of political change. Those are the things that drew us
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: to Barack Obama. But it's not really what voters always want,
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: particularly in a time of crisis. And I thought it
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: was a very strong, it was a good argument. I
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: do think it undersells how good a candidate Biden has
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: been in this race. He has been phenomenally disciplined. Everything
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: he does, and I think some of it comes very
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: naturally to him, but everything he does, everything he says,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: undergirds the argument for why him and why not Trump.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: That entire NBC town hall was all about Trump. His retweets,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: what it meant for him, his grievances with the questions
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: from Savannah, his being incredibly excited because some voter said
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: something nice about his smile. And the Biden event was
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: nothing about Biden. He told stories about his life and
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: his father, which he often does, but it was always
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: grounded in a way of talking about how to help
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: other people. Notably, he stayed afterwards for well over an
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: hour talking to all the voters. I was just very, very,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: very struck in that town hall by– and maybe this
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: is all of our expectations lowered by living in the
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Trump era. But just what a tremendous breath of fresh
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: air having just a good, normal, decent person who wants
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: to do the right thing in office would be for
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: this country. It should be table stakes. Ezra is right,
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: but it is not. And I think Biden can do
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: a lot more than that, for sure. But at the
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: bare minimum, he understands that in this campaign better than
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: anyone else, including us, has.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: The bar is low, but Trump hasn't crossed it. And
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Biden has. I mean, David Axelrod always says that when
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: an incumbent's up for re-election, the race is about finding
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: out who's going to be the remedy to that incumbent
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: and not the replica, right? People want to look for
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: what they most dislike about the incumbent and who's going
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: to be the remedy for that. And I think when
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: you ask what's wrong with Trump, the largest majority of
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: voters in this country, if you ask them what most
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: people agree is wrong with Trump, they would probably say
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: he's a fucking asshole.
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Like like we have, you know, as liberals, we have
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: a million things that we'd say is wrong with Trump.
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: He's an extremist. He's a racist. He's a xenophobe. He's
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: a sexist. But the most people in this country, when asked,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: even some Republicans, even non-voters, even people who don't pay
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: attention to politics, would say that guy is an asshole
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: and he is cruel and his cruelty and his self-absorption.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: has created this level of chaos around him that has
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: hurt all of us in the midst of a once-in-a-generation crisis, right?
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: That is the problem. And Joe Biden's, like, the genius
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: of his campaign in the general election was to understand
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: that what people want is decency again they want a
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: lot more than that i want a lot more than
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: that i want like a whole bunch of great progressive
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: policies to pass i do but right now the more
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: immediate emergency in this country is that we have a
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: man in office who is cruel and nasty and self-absorbed
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: while we are all going through a recession and a
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: pandemic and he is not fit to do that job
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: and he has made politics miserable he has made the
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: country miserable he's made us feel bad all the time
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: he's made us feel exhausted and what joe biden did
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: during that town hall a lot of his answers were
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: too long He was he rambled through some of them.
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: He got way into the weeds on some policies. But
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: again and again, every single moment of that town hall,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: he tried. He tried. He tried to show that he
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: was a decent person. He tried to show that he
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: would listen when there was a young black man who said,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: you know, why should I? You know, I don't maybe
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: he doesn't like Trump, but why should I vote for you?
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: I was thinking of not voting at all. And a
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: lot of young black men are wondering whether they should
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: vote at all. And Biden gives this very, very long
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: answer about education and criminal justice and stuff like that.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: And at the end, he's like, was that good? Was
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: that OK? And the voter was like, yeah, I think so.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: And Biden sensing that maybe it wasn't enough for him
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: was like, come find me afterwards. Come find me afterwards
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and I'll keep talking to you. And that is who
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden is. He is not the perfect candidate. He's
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: not going to be the perfect president. but the guy
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: is fundamentally decent and he's going to fight like hell
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: and really try to be a president for the whole
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: country and really try to work his ass off to
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: make people's lives better. And that came across in that
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: town hall more than anything else. And it is the
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: antithesis of the person that we have in office right now.
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: Your view, you know, your sort of point about people
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: agreeing Trump is an asshole is, I think, 100% right.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: And I think that that is unanimous agreement. And the
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: disagreement is not whether Trump's an asshole. It's whether he's
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: an asshole for me or whether he's an asshole for himself.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: And that's the difference between Trump 2016 and Trump 2020.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: In Trump 2016, his argument was, yeah, I'm an asshole,
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: but I'm going to fight for you. I'm going to
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: use my assholery to benefit you to stand up against
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: the deep state and the swamp and all of that.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: And now let's just, I'm an asshole who only cares
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: about myself. And you're sick. You've lost relatives. You've lost
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: your job. And I don't care about any of that
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: because I'm more worried about myself. And that is the difference.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: And campaigns are ultimately the meeting of the person in
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: the moment, right? And the best campaigns are when the
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: true essence of the candidate is what the electorate is
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: thirsting for. Obama in 2008 was exactly what they wanted.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: People wanted hope. They want someone who stood up against
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: the Iraq war. They want the opposite of George W.
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: Bush.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: And Joe Biden is, even though he is also a
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: white man in his 70s, is the opposite of Donald Trump.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, who talked to that person, talked to people
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: for hours after that, who genuinely cared whether he answered
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: the question these people had the courage to ask, is
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: the Joe Biden that we have known for many, many years.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: And the fact that he gets to be his absolute
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: true essence of himself also happens to be the best
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: possible political argument he can make for his election. And
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: that is exactly where you want to find yourself in
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: a campaign.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not a savior. He's not a fire-breathing populist.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: He hasn't been the most progressive person his whole life,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: but he is a decent public servant who is trying
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: his best. And that is not what we have in
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: the White House right now. And that is it. And look,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: it's like you said, 40 something percent of the country
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: is still going to say, you know, over the next
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks, Donald Trump is an asshole for me.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: It's just going to happen. But the question is, have
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: enough of them said, you know what? I thought he
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: was an asshole for me. But after four years, it
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem like he's done too much for me. Doesn't
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: seem like he's done too much for me. And if
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: enough people say that, that's it. Then that's the election
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: right there. One more development we should talk about before
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: answering a few questions. The Biden campaign announced on Wednesday
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: that Kamala Harris's communications director, a flight attendant on her
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: campaign plane, and a flight attendant on Joe Biden's campaign
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: plane all tested positive for COVID. Harris and Biden have
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: both tested negative and said that they weren't close to
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: the people who are infected and said that they were
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: wearing N95 masks. Meanwhile, Trump continues to his super spreader
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: tour of big rallies in the battleground states. Dan, how
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: do you think the Biden-Harris campaign handled announcing this news?
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Well, first, I just want to send our best wishes
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: out to Liz Allen, who is Kamala Harris' communications director.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: She's our former coworker from the White House. She is
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: one of the best people you will ever meet in politics.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, she is.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, well wishes.
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: To her, for sure.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: And I hope everyone listening should offer the same. They
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: handled it exactly the way they've handled everything else. And
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: I wrote about this this morning in my newsletter, that
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: it embodies their strategy. which is they compare the statement
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: they released, which laid out the timeline, the testing protocols,
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: the precautions the campaign takes on a daily basis to
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: keep Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, their staffs, the reporters
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: covering them, and everyone they come in contact with safe,
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: with how Trump has handled it. It exuded responsibility. And
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: that is actually, I think... excellent politics. That is the
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: right way to, that is the right thing to do
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: politically in this environment because it's a perfect contrast with
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: our deeply irresponsibly dangerous president. But like, I think it
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: is the advantage of, they handle it this way because
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: they take this very seriously. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: are leaders who understand that modeling good behavior is what
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: leaders do and good behavior saves lives in a pandemic.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: And Also, it is helpful that Biden has as his
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: advisors a bunch of people who have worked on these
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: issues in real life, in real time, outside the context
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: of campaign in government, right? Whether it's Ron Klain or
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: Tony Blinken and Tom Donilon and Anita Dunn, who was
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: there in the White House during H1N1, who understand how
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: serious leaders treat serious issues like this. And that statement
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: would have come from a very highly functioning, transparent White House,
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: not a presidential campaign. It is to their uh, substantive
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: and political credit in my view.
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that they were all like very worried and
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: scared and worried for Liz as, as they all should
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: have been. I think that they also thought to themselves,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: as we announced this news, this is an opportunity for
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: us to show, um, how different we are and how
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: different we're going to react from this white house and
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: how this white house handled that. And they did that
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: very well. Um, I also thought, my next thought was,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: stay home, everyone. Go back to the basement. Like, I don't,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: I have, I mean, that is, you know, it's still
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: the nightmare, right? That over the next two weeks, that
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: with all the precautions that all of them are taking,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: you know, someone could still catch it. Including Joe Biden
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: or Kamala Harris, which would be fucking awful.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, 100%. I think, you know, I was
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: incredibly comforted by reading about all of the steps that
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: they take.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden telling George Stephanopoulos now he's wearing two masks.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: Trump's on zero masks. Biden's up to two masks. He's
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: got an N95 and then another one on top.
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: That was great.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Do you think if Trump puts on one mask, Biden's
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: going to add two more masks?
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: I would, yeah. I would start wearing them all over
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: my face, head. Joe Biden should wear a fucking hazmat
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: suit for the last two weeks.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, the last thing any campaign wants to do
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: is take one of their two principles off the campaign
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: trail with less than three weeks to go, right? I mean,
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: that is a big deal for that campaign. Probably the
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: voters of the Biden campaign is most concerned about turning
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: out are the ones who are most likely to be
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: excited by hearing from and seeing Kamala Harris. They could
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: have made an argument to themselves that because of the
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: precautions that we take, we do not have to take
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris off the trail. We can put in some
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: other mitigating steps. But they erred on the side of
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: caution because that is the right thing to do. And
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: it is also the core message of their campaign, that
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: they are going to do things the right and responsible
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: way because that's how you save lives.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Okay. Let's take a few questions before we get to
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: your interview with Lieutenant Governor Fetterman.
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: Questions.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: Paul Miller asks this. Several months ago, it seemed the
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: overall sentiment shared on Pod Save America was that Mayor
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Pete's appearances on Fox News were, on balance, doing more
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: disservice by giving legitimacy to Fox News than being of
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: benefit by reaching Republican swing voters. Pete's had a few
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: recent and last couple weeks solid appearances on Fox, which
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: have garnered more eyeballs on Twitter. Do you all still
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: feel as if you'd suggest he not make such appearances?
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: Well, this is primarily my pet issue, of which I
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: have argued with many people about. And I will just
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: clarify my position. I am wholly agnostic on whether Democrats
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: want to appear for interviews on Fox News, whether you
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: want to do an interview with Bret Baier or Chris Wallace.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: If I was advising a candidate, I would probably say
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: not worth the time and energy. But I think that
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: is a debate of good faith. My biggest complaint in
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: the thing that I think is and was and is
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: a mistake are doing these town halls with Fox that
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: offer them legitimacy as a news organization. And my concern
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: was undermine the efforts done by media matters and sleeping
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: giants and others to persuade advertisers to walk away from
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: the dangerous white supremacy and climate denialism that pervades Fox.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: So I think Pete did a great job in these interviews.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: I very much enjoyed watching them. So if he wants
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: to keep doing them, for now an election or forevermore.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: I am totally fine with it. I thought, you know,
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: he is probably the one, like if you had to
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: pick one Democrat to go on Fox, Pete has proven
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: himself to perhaps be that Democrat.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: I think he has done a fantastic job over the
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: last couple of weeks. I've always been more conflicted about
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: this question. And look, I fucking hate Fox News. It
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: is my forever wish that a liberal billionaire will buy
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: the network and shut it down. I hope to wipe
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Fox News off the face of the earth. At some point,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: I helped start a media company.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: Peacefully, peacefully.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Peacefully, of course, obviously. I helped start a media company
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: to hopefully someday compete with Fox News and the right-wing
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: media ecosystem. Like, I think it's one of the most,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: you know, destructive forces in the country. But while it exists,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: I do think that going on that network as a
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Democrat and a Democrat like Pete or other Democrats who
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: can argue really well and piercing the information bubble of
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: some of the people who watch Fox News is important.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: And I think, look, The poll, you know, Nate Cohn
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: in the New York Times has done all these polls
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: of the race so far. And, you know, Nate pointed
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: out the other day, half of Joe Biden's margin right now,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: especially in some of these northern battleground states, is due
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: to people who voted for Donald Trump switching and saying
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: now they're going to vote for Joe Biden or people
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: who voted third party and saying they're going to vote
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: for Joe Biden. There are plenty of people who watch
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Fox News who have decided that even though they voted
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: for Donald Trump, They're going to now cast a ballot
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: for Joe Biden, which means that persuasion is still possible.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: And if people's information ecosystem is only Fox News and
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Ben Shapiro and all this stuff, and every once in
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: a while you can pierce that information bubble and make
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: a case and maybe reach some of them, it's probably
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: worth it. You know, it's not worth spending all your
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: time there. It's not worth like sitting there with Sean
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: Hannity and having him like scream at you the whole
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: time and not let you talk.
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: Like pick your battles on Fox. And I totally get
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: your point on the town halls. But I do think
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: it is on balance helpful just because as we have
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: learned from this election, at least so far in the polls,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: persuasion is still possible. It's not just about turning out
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: more of our people than their people.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: No, I think it is important to talk about the
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: scale of these things before people get too excited about them,
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: which is Brett Baer gets, I don't know, 800,000 viewers.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Very true.
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: So the Venn diagram of persuadable voters who are watching
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Brett Baer at the moment in which Pete is on
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: is pretty small. So I think you were exactly right.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: Persuasion is very important. Piercing the ecosystem is important. Creating
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: viral moments that get shared on social like Pete has done.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: is a good way of doing that. You are spitting
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: in the ocean of white supremacist propaganda if one of
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: the main strategies for combating it is Democratic politicians doing
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: Fox News interviews, right? There are strategic opportunities for it,
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: but there are limits as well. I'm never going to
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: let go of this issue, but it's a huge problem.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: I know. No, look, the main strategy for combating it
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: is this, crooked media. That is our answer to that.
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: Um, Raina Thompson from Facebook asks, why do polls vary
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: so much?
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: Because it's a cruel world.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Well, polling is one part art, one part science, right?
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: And the art part is figuring out what the electorate
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: is going to look like, right? So you poll 500 people.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: and the 500 people that you randomly poll all happen
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: to be college-educated white voters who live in a city,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: that's not what the electorate's going to look.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 5: Like, right?
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: So in each sample, the pollster has to figure out, okay,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: the sample of people that I talk to, is that
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: reflective of who's going to end up voting on election day?
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: And so some pollsters think maybe I'll get more Democrats
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: than Republicans on election day. Other pollsters think maybe I'll
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: get more Republicans than Democrats. Others like maybe the white
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: vote will be this. The other one might say the
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: white vote will be lower than this and there'll be
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: more black voters. And the way they make all these judgments, look,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: they're not just picking numbers out of the air. They're
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: looking at party registration. They're looking at party ID. They're
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: looking at how you voted in the past. They're looking
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: at where you live. They're looking at your education level.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: So there's a number of decisions that each pollster makes
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: on about what the electorate's going to look like, what
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: proportion of which demographic is going to be in the
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: final set of people who vote on election day that
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: differs from pollster to pollster. And that's why they all
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: look different. Did I get it? Do you think that's right?
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: I guess what the very tiresome and ridiculous metaphor uses,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: why doesn't all pizza taste the same, right? Sometimes it's
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: made by good people, sometimes made by bad people, sometimes
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: it's got different ingredients. It's It is an inexact art
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: and science, which is why, as all of the people
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: named Nate and others say, look at the average of
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: the polls, right? That will hopefully take out some of
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: those fluctuations in methodology and accuracy and competency between the
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: people doing the polls.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: And look, and of course, the thing that is keeping
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: us up at night, keeping everyone up at night is,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: you know, in 2016, the state polls in the northern
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: battleground states were wrong because they largely underestimated the number
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: of non-college educated white voters who were going to show
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: up on election day who happened to be very favorable
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump. And that is because they didn't reach
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of those people by phone. And so the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: question is, are the polls again underestimating the number of
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: non-college whites that are going to show up at the polls?
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Have pollsters found a way to reach more of those
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: voters this time so that the sample is more reflective
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: of what the electorate is going to be? And we
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: Well, we don't know that. We do know that this
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: time around, there's just a lot more state-level polling done
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: by traditionally well-qualified pollsters, right? So there was just very
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: few state polls in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, because people at
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: all levels of politics thought those states were not not
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: super competitive. And so when you only have six polls,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: it's more likely for it to be off than if
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: you have 36. And so this time around, I don't
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: know whether they're right or wrong, but I do know
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: that we know more than we did last time. And
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: the more polls you have, the more it flattens out
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: the error rate. And so we have more information, whether
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: that information will be right or wrong. We'll find out
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: in two and.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: A half weeks, John.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: We'll see. Last question. David Cummings asks, what does Biden's
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: huge fundraising in September and August mean for his campaign?
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: What can you do with 400 plus million dollars in
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: cash on hand?
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: Run lots of ads.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: Well, look, ultimately what it does is it gives Biden
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: the capacity to have several well-funded, well-organized paths to 270.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: Trump is making decisions right now about states he's throwing
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: overboard that he can't win, states that he just has
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: to bet he's going to win based on demographics like
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: Ohio and Iowa. And Biden is able to press his
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: case in Georgia. He's forcing Trump to spend money in Georgia, right?
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: Right as of last week, based on the data from
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: advertising analytics I looked at, the only state that Trump
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: is outspending Biden in that Hillary Clinton won in 2016
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: was New Hampshire. Biden is outspending Trump in the vast
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: majority of states. Trump is outspending Biden in Georgia, Ohio, Iowa,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: and maybe Texas. I think that's it. And Biden is
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: pushing everywhere else. So Biden is putting himself in a
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: place where he is able to press his case, put
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: Trump on the defensive. And that is important in any
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: presidential election, but particularly in what happened in a pandemic
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: where you just do not know what the conditions on
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: the ground are going to be in terms of how
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: mail ballots are counted, whether there are errors in which
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: ballots are sent out, whether the coronavirus cases are going
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: to spike in the lead up to election day that
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: could impact the ability of people to vote in person.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: And so the more states that you're able to be
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: competitive in, the better chance you have. And that's ultimately
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: what this gives Biden. It gives his campaign flexibility to
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: pursue as many paths as possible. And Trump is once again,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: trying to draw an inside straight. Now, before we get cocky,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: he drew, he drew one last time.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: He drew last time, but you know, Axios has the
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: story this morning about how, you know, Trump officials and
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: senior campaign officials in the Trump campaign are bracing for
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: a loss, you know, but when you really dig into
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: the piece, Bill Stepien, the campaign manager, basically, they're basically
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: giving up on Wisconsin and Michigan. It looks like they're,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: they don't think that they can win Wisconsin and Michigan
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: right now, which, but, the path to victory, if they
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: lose Wisconsin and Michigan is still, they win Pennsylvania, they
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: win Florida, they win Arizona, they win North Carolina. And
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: then of course the ones like, you know, the outside shots, Ohio, Iowa, Georgia, they,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: they win those too. But that would be now it
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: would be if, if they won, if they win Pennsylvania,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: Florida and Arizona and the second congressional district in Maine. Um,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: and then we don't win the second congressional district in
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: Nebraska and then it would be 269, 269, which is
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: fucking nightmare. But if we did win the second congressional district,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: then Joe Biden would hit 270 and it would be
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: by one. But so that's how, just to say, that's
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: how narrow the path is, but still a possible path, right?
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: Like we have not put Pennsylvania away. Joe Biden has
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: not put Pennsylvania away. He has not put Florida away.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: He has not put Arizona away. And the Trump campaign
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: knows that. And so they are, that's their inside straight.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: And like we said, he did it last time, but
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: we'll see.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: We'll see. $ 400 million.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: But it's like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and their campaign
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: work their ass off to raise all that money, grassroots donors,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: a gazillion events, everything, just tremendous enthusiasm support. And then
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: Sheldon Adelson and his wife wrote an $ 85 million check
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: to preserve American Republican super PAC that is going back
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: up on air in the exact state you mentioned right
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: now as we speak. Which is a testament to why
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: we have to absolutely fix our campaign finance system, but
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: it just shows the challenges the Democrats.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 5: Are up against.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: So keep working hard.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll have Dan's interview with Pennsylvania
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: He's Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, John Fetterman. Welcome to Pod
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: Save America.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: There is probably no state... in the country that Democrats
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: are more worried about than Pennsylvania? What's happening on the
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: ground there right now with less than three weeks to
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: go before the election?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 8: Well, I think the vice president is a particularly strong
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 8: candidate for Pennsylvania for any number of reasons. I've always
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 8: maintained that the secret to winning Pennsylvania, electorally speaking, lay
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 8: in the margins of the red rural counties. There's typically
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 8: around 55 or so red counties in in any given
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 8: election cycle. And each individual county doesn't have a lot
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 8: of votes that would necessarily swing the election, but as
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 8: one would go, they stack one on top of each
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 8: other and it adds up pretty quickly. And that's how
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 8: Donald Trump won in 2016. The vice president is more
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 8: popular across the board than Secretary Clinton was in 2016.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 8: So that dynamic I think is working. That being said,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 8: the president remains very popular and has a very distinct
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 8: and loyal following here in Pennsylvania. And I think Pennsylvania
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 8: should be treated as a margin play, even though the
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 8: dynamic is different.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 5: In my estimation than it was in 2016.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: What do you think has changed since 2016 within the
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania electorate?
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 8: I think one of the key things that's changed that
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 8: is absent in my experience that was very prevalent in
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 8: 2016 was convincing the left flank of our party to engage. Uh, during,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 8: during the 16, I was a surrogate for secretary Clinton
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 8: and I was often kind of labeled a sellout or like,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 8: you know, what are you doing? You know, shillery and
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 8: that kind of thing. What's the difference. And, and now
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 8: you don't hear anybody, you know, leading that charge because
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 8: now after four years they realized that, Hey, uh, there
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 8: really was a difference. Um, So there's much more unity
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 8: on the ground across the various factions of our party,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 8: without a doubt.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: And also, I'm also.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 8: My first statewide race manager is now in charge of Pennsylvania.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 8: He manages Pennsylvania for the Biden campaign. And I really
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 8: emphasized to Brendan when he took the job, you gotta
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 8: get the vice president to small county Pennsylvania. And they've
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 8: gone to Cambria. They've gone to Erie just a couple
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 8: of days ago, and they've really flipped the dynamic of
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 8: the Clinton campaign on. And I think overall, other factors
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 8: make it much more favorable than it otherwise would have
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 8: been in 2016. They're not making that same catastrophic mistake.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: Is there a county or something you're going to be
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: looking for on election night, Tabaz, to sort of give
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: you a sense of how to feel like what we,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: is there a canary in the coal mine or a
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: sign of hope that you're looking for and that all
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: of our listeners should look for?
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 8: Uh, I, I've always said, uh, tell me who wins
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 8: Erie County. They win Pennsylvania. And in this particular election that,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 8: that will pick the president. Uh, I believe Erie is, is,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 8: is Pennsylvania's premier bellwether County. And it was just ranked
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 8: on a recent New York times article confirming as, as such, uh,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 8: And also another key one is Luzerne County as well
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 8: has gotten some more write-up recently. Luzerne went strong for
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 8: Barack Obama in 2008. He continued to carry it in
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 8: 2012 to Mitt Romney, although by a smaller margin. And
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 8: Donald Trump won it by 2016 by 20 points. And
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 8: that kind of remarkable swing and margin stacked one on
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 8: top of the other with these other 50 plus counties
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 8: was the decisive margin of 45,000 rough votes between him
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 8: and Secretary Clinton in 2016.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: And what do you think, looking back at 16, accounted
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: for that swing? Was it, you know, sort of diminished
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: turnout on our side, you know, sort of the a
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: lot of vote switching in combination to what, you know,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: what sort of drove that? Because I mean, you obviously
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: know this stuff a lot more deeply than I do.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: But as someone who worked on both Obama campaigns, Pennsylvania
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: was a state that we considered very, you know, although
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: it would be close, you know, very securely in our column.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: You know, Obama did not run ads and did not
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: campaign in Pennsylvania 2012. And it obviously shifted very dramatically.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: And so what sort of accounted for that shift? Is
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: it was it unique to 2016 or is it part
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: of a longer term trend.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: We should be watching? Well, I think it's I think
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 5: it's a little of each.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 8: And to your point, yeah, Barack Obama did fabulously well.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 8: And when you look at some of the counties, he
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 8: won in 08 and 012. It's remarkable the way that,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 8: and then when you consider the way the map looks today,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 8: or looked in 2016 and is looking in 2020. What's
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 8: changed also is that Pennsylvania is switching too. The Southeast
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 8: is becoming more blue, but the Southwest is becoming more red.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 8: So it's like for every county we pick up in SEPA,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 8: We lose one in southwestern Pennsylvania. Another key dynamic, no
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 8: one thought Donald, the Clinton campaign never thought Donald Trump
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 8: could win Pennsylvania, to your point, after the Obama performance.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 8: And they created this illusion that if you just went
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 8: to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and had big rallies and drew
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 8: out the margin in Allegheny County in Philadelphia, that would
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 8: be sufficient in the collar counties. And they realized that
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 8: after it was over, that Trump synthesized margins that were
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 8: unprecedented in counties, picking up 75, even 80% of the vote.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 8: And again, stacked on 55 counties. Actually, I think it's
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 8: more than that. Secretary Clinton, I think, won seven counties
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 8: in Pennsylvania in 2016. So you're talking 60 counties that
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 8: Trump won by the margins that they've never seen before.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 8: And that was the deciding factor. And Joe Biden, Has
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 8: eaten into that one. I think his biographical roots in
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 8: pennsylvania is very helpful the fact that he is perceived
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 8: as a more um core democrat in the the obama
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 8: kind of mold as well as the fact that he
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 8: won the primary and his opponents painted him as just
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 8: that a an old an old school democrat somebody that's
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 8: no longer in touch with the party and and I
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 8: think now um The vice president is uniquely situated to
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 8: win Pennsylvania. And the Trump campaign is trying to use
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 8: fracking as a wedge issue or things. And that just
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 8: simply is unsophisticated and naive at this point, in my opinion,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 8: because given the pandemic, given the George Floyd uprising, given
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 8: 2020 in the Supreme Court, fracking has receded into the background.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 8: It is not on the minds of any voter at
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 8: this point in any meaningful way that's going to move
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 8: the poll numbers, nor can the Trump campaign redefine or
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 8: define the vice president in Pennsylvania, in my opinion.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you brought up the Supreme Court, which I found interesting.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: How much of a conversation is that among voters there?
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: Is that an issue that has risen more to the
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: forefront since the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 8: That certainly has become an issue. But There's also a
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 8: resignation among Democrats that it's a foregone conclusion. And I
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 8: think that's why these hearings aren't getting the kind of
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 8: sensational coverage that other ones have gotten in the past,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 8: because it's a foregone conclusion that this is going to
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 8: be like the last the last thing that they can do,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 8: the last victory lap before the election. So, and then
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 8: I think if Joe Biden wins, I think the real
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 8: problems are going to emerge, not with trying to bring
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 8: the right more unified, it's gonna be among the Democratic Party,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 8: because I think you're going to see a lot of
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 8: factions of our party that are now very united in
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 8: defeating Donald Trump right now.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 5: Suddenly, if Joe Biden does win, particularly if we take
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: the Senate, would.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 8: Immediately become much more like, hey, this is a priority.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 8: We got to make this happen. It's going to be,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 8: I think, difficult to kind of keep a direction.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: You know, when you talked about Biden's strength in Pennsylvania
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: vis-a-vis Hillary Clinton in 16, a lot of the, you know,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: a lot of the sort of the words you use
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: are unique to Biden, right? He obviously has Pennsylvania roots.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: That is not something that is necessarily replicable. He is
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: to the, you know, he won the primary in part
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: by being either Because of or despite being closer to
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: the center than probably the median primary voting Democrat, you know,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: if Biden is able to hold on and win Pennsylvania,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: he does it, you know, in part because of these
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: sort of the anomalous characteristics of his candidacy. It sort
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: of portends that Pennsylvania could continue to slide in the
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: red direction in future elections. And that's, you know, 20
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: electoral votes. What do you think the party needs to
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: do to stop that from happening over the long term
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania? Can we keep it a bluish purple state?
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 5: No, I believe we are going to keep it a
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 5: blue state. I really do.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 8: The suburbs in SEPA continue to expand and swell with support. Again,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 8: I return to that. If you are able to cut
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 8: off the Trump margin, and it's a specific term, then
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 8: that sucks all the oxygen out of the room for
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 8: Trump or any statewide Republican candidate. And that means investing,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 8: whether it's in broadband or in infrastructure or in health
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 8: care across these counties that have been utterly left behind
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 8: in many parts of Pennsylvania in these regions. And that's
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 8: one of my pet issues is legalizing marijuana because I
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 8: think it would benefit red.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 5: County farmers across Pennsylvania.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 8: Not allowing or ignoring 50 plus counties across Pennsylvania simply
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 8: because they don't have the huge population centers is critical
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 8: to Pennsylvania's fortune. In 2019, we had a superior court
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 8: race and there were four candidates for two slots and
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 8: there were two Republicans, two Democrats, and they split the
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 8: vote right down the middle. And then among those four candidates,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 8: there was one half of 1% separated all of them.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 8: So Pennsylvania is very solidly a blue state. When we
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 8: are able to redistrict our state legislature after the 2020 census,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 8: I think we'll have a legislator much more in line
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 8: with the democratic will of Pennsylvania. We got new congressional districts.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 8: And I think you'll see, and we also are in
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 8: a position to potentially take back the state house as
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 8: well too. So I think we are trending bluer but
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 8: we need to make sure we are making strategic investments,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 8: both from a moral perspective, as far as I'm concerned,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 8: but a strategic one in smaller red County, rural Pennsylvania.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: And so that, so the sort of the key to
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: holding on to Pennsylvania in addition to your position on marijuana,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: which I very much agree with is having sort of
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: a real economic agenda that we actually deliver on is
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: a huge part of that.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 4: Is that right?
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 8: There's some people in my party that get frustrated that,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 8: They think the key is to tease out new turnout
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 8: in Philadelphia and recruit more voters.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 5: And that's great.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 8: And at the expense of these more rural, older, you know,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 8: working class voters, what have you.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 5: And I'm like, why would you ignore one or the other?
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 8: It's like, yes, vote. You don't have to choose one
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 8: or the other. I would not get overly invested in
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 8: that there's one true narrative. But what is undeniable is
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 8: that Trump threaded the needle in 2016 by formulating margins
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 8: that were unprecedented and unanticipated by the Clinton campaign and
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 8: that's why and that's how he won and You know
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 8: the governor and I ran in 2018 less than two
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 8: years after Trump did and we had a swing of
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 8: over 900,000 votes so, you know, we carried our state
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 8: by 850,000 votes so This idea that there are just
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 8: irredeemably racist or red parts of Pennsylvania that won't move,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 8: that's just not true. I wouldn't be sitting here as
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 8: your Lieutenant Governor if that was the case. Pennsylvania responds
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 8: to agenda and our agenda needs to be firmly centered
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 8: in making sure that no region of Pennsylvania gets left
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 8: behind the way some of these parts objectively have.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: So last question for you, what advice are you giving
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: people in Pennsylvania about how to vote, given some of
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: the concerns about mail balloting and the Supreme Court decision
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: that makes it, I think, impossible to fix a rejected ballot?
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 8: Well, as of the last count, we have over 2.6
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 8: million ballots for mail requested, and more than 97% of
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 8: them have gone out. And what I'm telling people is
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 8: trust the United States Postal Service. I think some people
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 8: forget that When you mail your ballot, and Pennsylvania has
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 8: already paid the postage, so you don't even have to
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 8: provide a stamp, is that it's a local delivery. It's
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 8: not like they're not all sent to Anchorage, Alaska, and
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 8: then sent back and through somewhere. It can go as
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 8: little as five blocks if you're in Philadelphia. I mean,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 8: this is not a complex logistical issue. And vote by
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 8: mail in Pennsylvania works. We didn't have one single instance
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 8: of fraud detected in our June primary. And I'm telling folks,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 8: trust the United States Postal Service. And if you insist,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 8: go ahead and drop it off at a drop box.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 8: What I am concerned about and what I have sounded
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 8: the alarm, in my opinion, is these folks that say,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 8: I've been spooked by the chaos that the other side's
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 8: trying to foment about vote by mail.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 5: I'm going to vote in person.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 8: But the problem is, is that you must bring your
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 8: ballot and your envelope and everything into entirety or you
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 8: can't vote on election day. unless you cast a provisional ballot.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 8: And that's an entirely longer, in-depth process that the system
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 8: was not designed to accommodate. And that would blow up
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 8: the lines and create mass scale chaos. And I think
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 8: that with 2.6 million ballots, if that affects just 10%
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 8: of voters, you're talking a significant number of votes that
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 8: could be thrown into play, given that idea that you
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 8: can't just show up and say, well, I threw it
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 8: out or I lost it or I didn't bring all
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 8: of it.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 5: And that's why I'm.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 8: Telling people, look, don't let the misinformation and the lies
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 8: spook you from voting for a male. That is a solid,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 8: secure and true way to vote in Pennsylvania.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much. This was fascinating. We are
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: going to be watching Erie and Luzerne County now very
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: closely because of this interview. And thanks for everything you're
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: doing and good luck down the stretch here.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 5: Thanks again for having me on.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Lieutenant Governor Fetterman for joining us today. Everyone
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: have a great weekend and we will see you next week.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: I think next week we're going to do Monday, Wednesday,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: Friday again because we have the, I think, last scheduled
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: debate next Thursday night.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: Look, I think we're going Monday, Wednesday, Friday, no matter what.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: So if Trump cancels that debate, we'll still be here.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: We'll pass our test and we'll be here.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: Have a good weekend. Go make some phone calls.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: Bye. Bye.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production. The executive
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: Quinn Lewis, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian,
• 1:22:55
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• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: episodes as videos every week.